If you like something…

Author Notes: I've discovered that pretty much any vegetable can be cooked in this manner -- lots of olive oil and garlic, and long slow cooking -- and it will turn out well. Great for grownups, great for babies, great for all. —Merrill Stubbs

Serves 8 as a side dish, baby for about a week

1/3cup olive oil

1pound carrots, peeled and sliced into 1/4-inch rounds

2 fat cloves garlic, peeled and smashed

Salt

Combine the olive oil, carrots, garlic and a couple small pinches of salt in a medium, heavy-bottomed saucepan. Set it over medium heat and bring the oil to a simmer. Give the carrots a good stir, cover the pot and turn the heat down as low as it will go.

Cook the carrots, stirring gently every once in a while, until the slices are soft enough that they can be smushed easily by gently pinching them between your fingers. (This should take anywhere from an hour to 2 hours.) If at any point you find that the carrots start to stick to the pan and brown, gently lift them from the bottom of the pan, add a few tablespoons of water and re-cover.

When they are very soft, you can serve them as is. Or, if you're feeding a baby (or you just like them this way yourself), you can either mash the carrots gently or push them through a fine mesh sieve before serving them. Make sure to let them cool before you feed them to a baby!

Since I was a kid, I have never liked carrots. But I really REALLY liked these! Thank you for the lovely recipe. Once a friend made some carrots that I could tolerate; they had tarragon in them. So to make this recipe a bit more grown-up, I added about one teaspoon of tarragon and a dash of sherry vinegar at the end. Divine!

My mother did this for me as a kid a long time ago! She swears I even turned slightly orange... Excellent recipe, and with the carrots, an easy one with which to tinker. Maple syrup, brown sugar, honey, fresh herbs - all easy additions, depending on what you have on hand.